


In The Dark

by corgasbord, grayimperia, idaate



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, postgame, vr au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 10:27:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15192803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corgasbord/pseuds/corgasbord, https://archiveofourown.org/users/grayimperia/pseuds/grayimperia, https://archiveofourown.org/users/idaate/pseuds/idaate
Summary: "That’s what happens in a power outage,” Saihara says, goodnaturedly enough. “But still. I doubt we’ll be in the dark forever, you know. These things pass with time.”They talk more. Ouma keeps his eyes on the flame. All things pass.-Ouma, Saihara, and Momota spend a night in darkness.





	In The Dark

The power’s gone out, and because _someone_ (who might or might not go by the name Momota Kaito) used up all their flashlight batteries for those dumb little globe machines that shine stars on the ceiling, instead of, you know, saving them for flashlights like they were intended to be used, they have to resort to candles to deal with the current darkness.

“This is barbaric,” Ouma says. “We’re barbaric.”

“I don’t think that candles are barbaric,” Saihara says, placing two more tea lights into the small circle they’ve set up on the living room table. Momota and Ouma huddle together under a dozen or so blankets while Saihara finishes his work on their last few light sources. “If anything, aren’t they used in fancy parties and things like that?”

“We’re living in the stone age,” Ouma says. “Going backwards in time.”

“You know,” Momota pipes up with a sidelong glance at Ouma, “if someone found some way to turn whining into a power source, we’d be set for life, what with Ouma here and all.”

“An awfully bold statement coming from you of all people, _Momo-chan_.” The nickname falls from Ouma’s lips even more derisively than usual. “And it’s easy for you to act like nothing’s wrong when this is all your fault, anyway.”

Momota throws up his hands beneath the blankets piled over him. “How is it my fault? I don’t control the fucking weather!”

“I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault,” Saihara interjects calmly as he joins them on the floor. “These things just happen sometimes. All we have to do is wait it out for a few hours, no big deal.”

Ouma huffs. “If you say so. I still think it’s Momota-chan’s fault.”

Momota just rolls his eyes at the provocation as Saihara places a placating hand on his shoulder. Ouma hears him distantly start to assure Momota that he’s absolutely sure it will be back by morning at the latest as Ouma sets his eyes on the nearest candle.

The air is stagnant enough that there’s little flicker in the flame’s movement but it’s still enough. It doesn’t come back as a sharp pain, but rather a dull ache from somewhere in his small chest. He remembers fire. He remembers burning and hatred.

Momota whines, “you know, you say that, man, but we don’t know anything for sure, _and_ we can’t even check the T.V. or anything.”

“That’s what happens in a power outage,” Saihara says, goodnaturedly enough. “But still. I doubt we’ll be in the dark forever, you know. These things pass with time.”

They talk more. Ouma keeps his eyes on the flame. All things pass.

“What if the power never comes back on, though?” he hums, cutting into whatever surely unimportant statement Momota had been making. “Or it only comes back on once we’re dead and gone.”

“Jesus Christ, Ouma,” Momota says.

Ouma picks up one of the candles by its base between only three fingers. It’s surely not the most stable of ways to hold the candle, but he’s pretty sure the blanket he’s wrapped in isn’t made of _super_ flammable cloth so it should be fine. “I mean, sure, things pass with time, but things include us, you know? And the human race.”

“Ouma—” Momota says, but Saihara quietly shushes him with a gentle look on his face. He’s such a wonderful enabler.

“In fact,” Ouma goes on, “what’s to say that this blackout isn’t the start of the end? Momo-chan, aren’t there theories where, like, if a super big asteroid that had electricity or something around it fell to earth it would take out all the power right before we perished and stuff? Maybe the blackout is because of the meteor asteroid whatever!”

Thunder cracks outside.

“Uh,” Momota says, “no.”

“I’m pretty sure the storm blowing down one of the telephone poles is the reason,” Saihara says.

Ouma sticks out his bottom lip and pointedly turns his face away. “Hmph. You guys just don’t have any imagination.”

“I’ve got plenty of imagination. I just don’t waste it on stupid shit like apocalypse scenarios or whatever you like to think about in your free time,” Momota says.

“First of all,” Ouma says, index finger lifted, “I would ask what you _do_ waste your free time thinking about, but I realize it would be foolish to assume that you think at all. Secondly,” he continues, ignoring Momota’s spluttered protests, “planning for an apocalypse is _not_ stupid. It’s practical.”

Saihara’s eyebrows take on a slant that’s equal parts confused and concerned. “Ouma-kun… do you, uh, spend a lot of time thinking about the end of the world?”

“Do you _not_ do that?” Ouma fires back.

“No one fucking does that,” Momota says, unsettled. “Except weirdos like you, I guess.”

“Well, then that answers that,” he says with an air of finality.

Saihara exchanges a half-tentative half-exasperated glance with Momota. “Answers what?”

“Which of us will survive an apocalypse,” Ouma says. “And it looks like Momota-chan’s zero for two since we already know which of us would survive a death game.” He shoots him a bright smile. “Tough break there, big guy.”

Saihara jumps in before Momota can get a chance to protest. “W-Why don’t we talk about something different?” he stammers. “Something nice that involves… no one dying.”

Ouma rests his chin on his folded legs. “Well, my darling Saihara-chan, I’m open for suggestions.”

“Ah, uhm,” Saihara fumbles.

“Opposite of death, life!” Ouma pats his stomach. “I’m pregnant. Momo-chan, you’re the father.”

“Wha—?!”

“Yeah, that was a lie, sorry. It could be Saihara-chan. Not a hundred percent sure on that area. Gotta do some testing and—“

“Ouma-kun,” says Saihara gently, _firmly,_ “that’s not what I meant when I suggested something different.”

“Well, what did you mean, then?” Ouma tilts his head to the side, cheek pressed up against his knees with his candle still firmly in hand. “You seemed kind of stumped, there.”

“The future,” says Saihara, “let’s talk about the future that we’re going to be _living_ in, together.”

“That sounds like a great idea, actually,” Momota agrees, mostly appearing eager for any change in the subject. “We should always be looking ahead, striving for better. I mean,” he straightens his back proudly, “I dunno about you guys, but I’m already making plans for myself.”

Saihara doesn’t seem like he was expecting that. Ouma, on the other hand, is unimpressed. “You sure talk a big game, but I doubt you’ve actually ever planned anything beyond thinking ‘wouldn’t this be cool?’ and deciding to make it your life’s mission or something.”

“Hey, deciding something would be cool to do is the first step to actually doing it,” Momota says. “And I _do_ make plans when I’m serious about something, okay? I just don’t like to overthink it.”

The smile creeping fast over Ouma’s face at the almost painfully open window for more taunting is enough to spur Saihara to action. “I think that’s good,” he says quickly. “Not overthinking things, I mean. I know I sometimes just get really caught up in my head and then end up doing nothing.”

“Exactly,” Momota says. “It’s better to act and regret it than to regret doing nothing.”

“Inaction is an action,” Ouma says. “You choosing not to tell Momota-chan how dumb he is is an action. The lights refusing to turn on is an action. And me,” he places his candle back on the table in order to flop on to his back dramatically with an accompanying sigh, “deciding to waste away in the dark is an action.”

Momota just snorts at his speech. “Dude, you gotta get out more. And also,” he furrows his brow, “what is with you tonight?”

“What do you mean, ‘what’s with you tonight?’ Am I not appealing to you right now, Momota-chan?” Ouma lifts his head up, peering at the shape of Momota from over his chest. At this distance, the boy’s figure is silhouetted by the candlelight, darkening his overall features. “Maybe what you _should_ be asking is what’s up with yourself. After all, one’s perception of other things gets kinda messed up when you aren’t doing that hunky-dory yourself, you know?”

“What the fuck?” Momota says. “I’m feeling fine, thanks, and if you’re trying to not make us suspicious of you or something, you’re really only just making us more—hey, what’s wrong?”

The uncharacteristic (at least, when you factor Ouma into the equation) softness of Momota’s voice is caused by Ouma’s lip beginning to wobble ever so slightly, tears pooling in his eyes and dripping down his nose. Ouma says nothing, but shakes his head.

“Ouma-kun,” Saihara says, “it really isn’t nice of you to do things like that when Momota-kun is genuinely just worried about your well-being.”

His tears dissipate in an instant. “Jeez, you’re no fun, Saihara-chan,” Ouma sighs over Momota’s indignant squawks. “And I just gave him what he wanted, you know? He thought something was off with little ol’ me, and he got a little ol’ me that was feeling off.”

“I didn’t want that!” Momota argues, forehead creasing with something too serious to be the irritation he normally gets with Ouma. “I don’t like seeing you upset, dumbass. I asked because you _are_ being fucking weird and I thought maybe I’d be nice and see what was up.”

“I thought you’d know better than that by now,” Ouma says. “Being nice doesn’t work on not nice people, and I’m not a nice person. Also, you’re still doing that annoying thing where you confuse being nice with being nosy.”

Once again, Saihara cuts in to diffuse the rapidly rising tension. “Ouma-kun,” he says, voice stern. “All of that aside, you can’t blame us for worrying a little about you sometimes. Some of the things you say are kind of, um…” He sucks his bottom lip, apparently seeking as inoffensive a word as possible.

“Freaky?” Momota supplies unhelpfully. “Just kind of fucked up and weird in general?”

“Morbid,” Saihara settles on with a frown in Momota’s direction. “And yes, a little more so than usual, tonight. So if something is bothering you, you can tell us.”

Ouma searches Saihara’s half-lit face for half a second before his eyes snap back to their few candles’ tiny flames. From his new position they look even smaller than before.

All things pass.

Ouma says, “I’ll get over it. If I got over dying, then I can get over this.”

Saihara’s expression falls, but Momota seems strangely triumphant. “So something _is_ bothering you! Well come on, tell us.”

Ouma’s passive features shift to a scowl. “Momota-chan, did you really ignore everything I just said five seconds ago?”

“Yeah, duh,” Momota grins.

Ouma’s halfway through an eyeroll when he hears shifting, and then suddenly Momota’s lying on his back beside him. Saihara’s the one to question his behavior, asking, “Um, Momota-kun?”

“You should come down here, too, Shuichi,” he says. “Great view of our ceiling.”

At that Saihara’s lips twitch into a barely contained smile. “Momota-kun, are you mocking Ouma-kun?”

“No,” says Momota, semi-indignant.

“Yes,” says Ouma in the exact same tone of voice. “Saihara-chan, you should come down here to teach him a lesson.”

There’s no logic because it’s Ouma, but Saihara chuckles and lies down next to him anyways. Ouma hums triumphantly and sing-songs “Saihara-chan likes _meee_ more. He laid down next to _meee!”_ in Momota’s direction, causing him to respond with a snort and a “Fuck off.”

Their ceiling is only sort of a mess. It’s a tall one because no one wanted to feel trapped again, but that makes it _so_ much harder to clean when as a fun bonding activity they try to make pizza “like in those cooking animes!” and it ends up turning into a “I can throw my dough up higher than you no you can’t I can throw it higher fuck you” competition. There’s a couple plastic glow-in-the-dark stars that Momota stuck up there back when they still had the ladder, and if Ouma squints, he can see the shadows of the dent Momota made after he had chucked a game controller away in frustration.

For a while, no one says anything. The three of them watch the faint yellow light from the candles dance across the plaster far above their heads, vague shapes flickering in and out of existence. Ouma wouldn’t call the silence comfortable, but no one questions him further. He thinks his partners have realized by now that trying to pry honesty from an unwilling liar is an effort that is not only futile but alienating.

Or maybe they know, somehow, that fire lights sparks of anxiety in Ouma’s stomach and fills his lungs with smoke. Maybe they’ve figured out that it’s best not to illuminate memories that Ouma would sooner let burn.

… _That’s probably not it._

Eyes still trained upwards, Ouma idly lifts his hands, small and pale in contrast to the big, dark silhouettes they leave on the ceiling. “Look,” he points out as he splays his fingers a certain way, “it’s a butterfly.”

Momota raises his arms and hooks his thumbs together, making a similar pattern. A much larger shadow streaks across their ceiling, and Momota snorts. “Dude, yours is tiny.”

“Rude,” Ouma scoffs.

“Well,” Saihara says, his smile only half-hidden in the darkness. “Ouma-kun is pretty small.”

Ouma scowls to himself while Momota laughs in confirmation, his comment coming fast and playful as the butterfly he made falls apart. Ouma still holds his close to his chest. “Yeah, you’re like an ant.”

Part of Ouma thinks the joke would land better if his mind wasn’t suddenly caught up in butterflies being ignited and burning into nothing. Even between them as they laugh, Ouma finds it easy to feel alone. Maybe it’s because of the dark providing such a convenient hiding spot, or maybe the way he can so easily fall out of a nice conversation. Or maybe it’s because part of him is a bit too worried about having to face how comfortable he’s become.

Momota’s making some joke about how he’s travel-sized, and Ouma raises his hands to spread his butterfly’s wings again. “You’re just jealous,” he says.

“Of what?” Ouma doesn’t need to turn his head to feel Momota moving beside him, goatee brushing against Ouma’s shoulder. “That you’re tiny and I’m not? Dude, the only people who say that there are advantages to being small are people who are small themselves, and I thought you didn’t like when people lied to themselves.” Momota reaches over and flicks the side of Ouma’s nose. Ouma’s face crinkles up.

“Welllll,” Ouma says, dragging both the word and his butterfly out, “for one thing, short people are statistically more likely to die sooner than tall people. Which means I get to die before you guys, _surrounded_ by you guys, but you’re going to die all alone Momo-chan!”

Saihara softly says, “I thought we agreed not to talk about death.”

Ouma giggles, “Soooo-rrryyy,” not sounding sorry at all.

“A-And besides,” Momota butts in, sounding awfully hurt, “it all depends on what study you look at. Maybe you’ll be the one to die all alone.”

 _“Guys,”_ Saihara says.

Both of them fall silent and slant their gazes away from each other awkwardly. Ouma’s eyes drift back to the ceiling, watching his intangible butterfly dance. Momota mumbles a “Right, my bad,” and Ouma can’t tell whether it’s directed at him or at Saihara. Probably Saihara.

Still, Ouma is the one who produces a response, face blank. “It’s fine. I’ve done it before and I could do it again.”

Next to him, Saihara’s breath catches. “Ouma-kun…” he murmurs, and he just sounds so horribly _sad_ that Ouma can’t help the way his nose wrinkles.

“I—” Momota fumbles, recognizing his mistake. “I didn’t mean it like that.” Ouma lets his hands drop again, bored and quiet. “C’mon, Ouma, you know I didn’t mean it like that,” Momota repeats more insistently.

“Oh. Did you think you made me sad or something?” Ouma asks, examining the dirt under his bitten-down nails. “I already told you, it’s fine. Maybe it will end up being like that! Who’s to say what will happen? You don’t know, I don’t know. But I’ve prepared for anything, so,” he shoves his thumbnail beneath another nail to pick the grime out from beneath it, hard enough to sting. “Doesn’t bother me. You guys are waaay too sensitive.”

Momota opens his mouth to argue back, but Saihara’s quiet tone shuts him up more than any yelling could. “It would bother me,” he says. “Feeling like you have to accept that you’re going to be alone… I think that would bother anyone. And,” he takes a breath, “I know I didn’t die, but I kind of lived through that. We all did, for awhile.”

Momota sighs. “You guys have got to stop letting that damn game control you. Like I said, think to the future, alright? I know saying ‘just get over it’ isn’t gonna do a damn thing, but this,” he gestures vaguely, “what is this helping? Hell, it’s a blackout, and when I was a kid that mean we’d do fun shit like play board games or cards or tell stories, not mope around and feel sorry for ourselves.”

Saihara and Ouma both go quiet for a moment before Ouma murmurs, “we could tell ghost stories.”

Momota winces. “Not those kind of stories.”

Ouma pouts. “You’re no fun.”

“Card games,” says Saihara, sitting up abruptly. “Okay. Does anyone know where we keep the deck?”

“I only know where the incomplete one is,” says Ouma, “because I’m sentimental and stuff and care about things even when they no longer have any meaning.”

“Second drawer from the top in the cabinet next to the kitchen table,” says Momota.

“Unlike Momo-chan.” Ouma sniffs.

Saihara steps away from their little ring of fire and Ouma kicks Momota’s feet. Momota kicks back, and in the less than thirty seconds it takes for Saihara to return with the well-worn deck, they’ve got a foot wrestling match that’s dangerously close to knocking over one of the candles.

A taut, alarmed noise escapes Saihara as he scurries over. “Okay, I’m glad you two are having fun, but—”

“We’re not,” Momota says at the same time that Ouma chirps, “Hey, Saihara-chan, watch! I’m about to win!”

With a mildly pained look, Saihara says, “You’re about to kick the table, and I’d rather not set anything on fire.”

That’s enough to make the both of them still, however reluctantly, and pull away from each other. Saihara kneels in front of the table and Momota and Ouma sit up and watch him pull the cards out and shuffle them a bit with unsteady fingers. “I was totally about to beat you, but I can be generous this time and call it a draw,” Ouma quips at Momota, like an afterthought.

“Sure,” Momota scoffs, “but that doesn’t matter, because I’m about to kick your ass at…” he pauses, thinking. “Uh, what are we playing?”

“We haven’t decided yet,” Saihara says. “Suggestions are welcome, though.”

Ouma opens his mouth, and Saihara quickly amends, “No gambling.”

“Then what’s the point?” Ouma says with a dramatic sigh. “And here I was looking forward to winning the shirt off of Momota-chan’s back.”

“N-No strip poker either,” Saihara says.

Ouma smirks at him. “It was a figure of speech, but good to know Saihara-chan’s mind is in the gutter.”

He ends his assessment with a wink as Saihara flushes too much to adequately formulate a response. Momota claps him on the back a bit too roughly to make the gesture as assuring as he intends it to. “Hey, it’s alright, man,” he says. “I know if I was you, I’d wanna see me shirtless, too.”

Saihara’s face burns even brighter. “M-Momota-kun, you can’t just say things like that…”

“It’s true though!” Ouma chimes. “Momota-chan and Saihara-chan are both perverts.”

“And as if you’re just an innocent little angel,” Momota snorts.

“I am!” Ouma says. “When have I ever done anything wrong ever?”

“Ouma, I know your phone’s background is a picture of—”

“Can we just play the game, please?” Saihara asks.

“Fiiiine.” Ouma yawns and stretches his hands out in front of him, letting them crack. “We should play slappies!”

“What?” Momota says.

“Or ‘Egyptian Rat Screw’ for the uncultured swine over here.” Ouma props his chin up on the palm of his hand and sticks his hand out for the deck. Saihara hands it over after only a moment’s hesitation, and Ouma takes the deck out and begins shuffling it. “But I still vastly prefer slappies as a name.”

“I still have no fucking clue what you’re talking about,” Momota says. He reaches for his phone before remembering the power and, thus, the wi-fi is out, and _then_ remembering that they’re supposed to be more frugal on their data plan (you’d think they’d get a better one, being survivors of a killing game and all that) lets his hand drop by his side.

“Don’t worry, Momota-chan, I can show you how to play. I’m a very good teacher!” Ouma chirps.

Saihara sends him a nervous look. “Ouma-kun…”

“Man, Saihara-chan has no faith in me,” he says, downcast, before continuing to explain the rules in the same drawn out melancholy tone.

The first few rounds go relatively smoothly, though Saihara’s sporadic joy on his few wins starts to fade into worry as Momota begins cursing under his breath after a particularly brutal round. Ouma massages his hand, whining about Momota manhandling him, to which Momota immediately snaps that he’s the one who started using his nails first.

There’s a familiar, chaotic, competitive energy swirling around them, and when Saihara hesitantly suggests switching games, he can only shrink under the weight of the twin death stares suddenly trained on him. “I-I don’t think this game is good for my health,” he says. “Or anyone’s health.”

“Only because Ouma keeps chea—”

“I am not! Momota-chan’s just a sore loser!”

“Can we please not?” Saihara asks again. “I really don’t think anyone’s enjoying this anymore.”

“Huh?” Ouma says. “What are you talking about? I’m having tons of fun.”

“Yeah,” Momota says. “And it’ll be even more fun once I grind Ouma into the dirt.”

There’s a glint in Momota’s eyes that is definitely not the spirit of friendly competition. Saihara’s features pull into a grimace as he rubs two fingers against his temple and says, “This was a bad idea.”

“I think any idea that lets me prove I’m better than Momota-chan at something is a great idea, actually.”

“And I think any idea that lets me wipe that stupid smug look off your face—”

“Guys, _please_ ,” Saihara interrupts, exasperation filling his tone. “It’s a game. It’s not supposed to prove anything. It’s just a way to pass the time until we get power again. Is it really too much to ask to, I don’t know,” he waves his hand vaguely, “do something nice and quiet together without the fighting?”

“Yes,” Ouma says the same time Momota lets out a guilty “no…”

Saihara sighs. “Listen, cards on the table, I don’t think they’ve even started working on the pole outside so it’s going to be a while before the power comes back. If you guys can’t be normal, maybe we should just sleep, okay?”

“Sleeping’s boring,” Ouma says.

“You’re boring,” Momota says, and Ouma picks up one of the cards and throws it at Momota. It misses, floating across the air and landing on top of one of the very much lit candles.

Ouma says, “Whoopsie.”

The card bursts into flame.

Momota and Saihara both jump with nearly identical startled shouts. Momota’s first instinct is to reach for it, then to realize that that’s a terrible idea and draws his hand back at the same time that Saihara yelps, “What are you doing? Don’t touch it!” For a second, Saihara seems at a loss, then scrambles up to his feet with a promise of, “I-I’ll get something to put it out with.”

Momota’s shifting in his spot restlessly, eyes flicking between the kitchen doorway that Saihara disappeared into and the burning card, like he thinks the table might catch on fire if they wait too long or something.

But Ouma knows that probably won’t happen. Probably. Their house probably isn’t going to burn down because he set one measly little playing card aflame.

So he remains perfectly still, his thousand-yard stare trained on the card as it blackens and shrivels atop the candle, as though transfixed by the sight. Transfixed enough, even, that he isn’t entirely sure that he’s breathing.

A glassful of water splashes over the flames, and the room goes dark. With the dark comes a quiet punctuated only by one last curse from Momota. Ouma’s eyes remain on the spot where the last fire he lit had been. Any feelings of comfort the night had held went out with the candle’s tiny flame. The peace exists only as the smoke Saihara desperately tries to fan away from himself.

It’s pitch black, and the sounds of movement come back slowly. A soft light pours out from Momota using his phone as a makeshift flashlight. He shines it over the cinders of the playing card and Saihara’s initial question over everyone’s well being changes midway to, “that was my uncle’s coffee table…”

Momota reaches out for the ashes despite Saihara making a small worried noise in the back of his throat. “I don’t think it’s too bad,” he murmurs. “Shuichi, can you get a trashcan or something over here?”

Saihara hurries off again while Momota further inspects the damage. Ouma’s eyes finally flicker to Momota’s form hunched over the sopping wet candle. They’ll remove the garbage, then clean the table, Ouma thinks, but, really, actions like that only treat the symptoms of the problem.

“Ouma,” says Momota. “You’re getting that look.”

“Hm? What look? You can’t even see me.”

Momota really isn’t looking at him, gaze still on the table. “You know,” he says slowly, like he’s thinking and actually trying to pick out his words, something Ouma absolutely _loathes,_ “you don’t have to, like…  fuck, what’s the word—” he frowns and motions vaguely with the hand that isn’t holding the phone. “You don’t have to feel like things are gonna—gonna explode all the time. This situation we’ve got here is less fragile than you make it out to be.”

Ouma tilts his head to the side. “Woooow,” he drawls. “What website did you read that one off of?”

“Explode—like the card!” Momota ignores Ouma and his vague hand motion turns more assertive as he points at the burn on the table. “Yeah. Fuck, yeah. Ouma, the card is a metaphor.”

Ouma says in the dryest tone possible, “please shut up.”

Saihara returns with a small waste bin before Momota can say anything and begins to scoop the charred mess into it. And Momota does shut up, for once. They all do, at least until Saihara’s finished wiping off the table and set the trash aside.

He brushes his hands clean on his thighs with an audible breath. “Ouma-kun.”

Ouma tightens his posture, feigning attentiveness. “Oh nooo, am I in trouble?” he asks, like he doesn’t feel bad about what just happened—because he doesn’t, of course. That would be stupid.

“What? No,” Saihara says, bewildered. “I was just going to say, first of all, that you should really be more careful. If something else had caught on fire, that would have been… really bad.”

Ouma’s voice drops with his reply, in both pitch and volume. “I don’t need you to tell me that.”

There’s a heavy pause. Then Saihara clears his throat. “R-Right… Um. Secondly,” he continues, “I know we’re all a little guilty of looking for things to distract ourselves with—”

“You were the one who suggested we play a game,” Ouma reminds him.

“Well, yes, but,” Saihara falters. “I mean, I thought it would help…”

Momota interrupts, “I think what he’s getting at is what I was talking about a minute ago. You can’t just sit there and stew in your problems, man. It’s not good for you, and uh, not to make everything about us, but it’s also kinda…” He scratches the back of his head with his free hand in a familiar gesture that only happens when he’s feeling especially awkward. “Well, it’s depressing to see.”

“Oh, of course,” Ouma says sardonically, “ _terribly_ sorry to keep ruining the mood with my, ah, whatever it is you think I’m doing.”

“Being scared,” Saihara says quietly. “Or anxious and everything Momota-kun was saying earlier. Not that that’s ruining the mood or, more like,” he shakes his head, “I don’t think either of us really care about that.”

Saihara moves to sit beside them again as Momota says, “Yeah, and we don’t care that you’re scared, either.”

“Wow, gee thanks, Momota-chan,” Ouma says. “Can always count on you.”

“Didn’t mean it like that,” Momota says. “More like, it’s fine or whatever. The game fucked us all up,” he lifts the wet candle, “fire fucked you up, and you’re not gonna be okay all the time. Point is you still let us help instead of getting so in your head that you set our house on fire.”

“Momota-chan,” Ouma says. “Are you still trying to make your dumb ‘card-explosion’ metaphor.”

“It’s a good metaphor!” Momota huffs.

“The point is,” Saihara says, “I get feeling like you can’t hold onto things, or that if you don’t act right or do enough people will leave you… but, um,” he tugs on his bangs, “I don’t know where I was going with this. Momota-kun, do you have anything to...?”

The words are spoken a little too sadly for either Ouma or Momota to believe they’re just for Ouma’s comfort. “Ah, man,” Momota says, suddenly surging forward to drag Saihara into a one-armed hug. “You know I’m here for you.”

“And it’s dumb for Saihara-chan to worry about things like that,” Ouma says. “Saihara-chan’s smart and interesting and everyone loves him, so he really doesn’t have anything to worry about.”

Saihara smiles softly. “You know, I could say the same about you, Ouma-kun.”

“No, you couldn’t,” Ouma fires back.

“Yes, I could.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Momota stops them. “Man, is it always that annoying when I do that with Ouma?”

“Yes,” Saihara says almost automatically. “I mean… I love you?” he finishes sheepishly.

Momota groans, “Shuichi,” while Ouma takes the opportunity to jump on his back, throwing his arms around his neck.

“And I love big dumb idiot Momo-chan, too!”

“Hey! I told you not to call me that!”

“Waaah! Momota-chan didn’t say ‘I love you’ back!”

Saihara accepts his place still under Momota’s arm, dragging him into their play wrestling. And when he sees the lights in their eyes, all he can think is that the darkness doesn’t last forever.

The power doesn’t come back on in the morning, but the sun peeks through their windows and shines over where Momota and Ouma fell asleep in their makeshift blanket fortress. Saihara smiles when he wakes first to finish cleaning up the mess from the night before.

The last remains of the fire are swept away, but the morning light remains.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written collaboratively by each of us writing roughly 100 words and giving it to the next person. We're also posting it to announce that we're going to be hosting saioumota week from August 5th to 11th! The twitter account can be found [here](https://twitter.com/saioumotaweek) and the tumblr account [here](https://saioumotaweek.tumblr.com/), though the tumblr account, at the time of this fic being posted, is still under construction. 
> 
> We hope you will consider participating, and that you enjoyed this fic!


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